Talking about press freedom

Warm porridge and bitter tea

IN THIS week’s dramatic tussle over press freedoms, much of the action took place in the Guangzhou newsroom of Southern Weekend, the newspaper at the heart of the dispute, where journalists organised petitions and threatened a strike. There was more action in the streets outside the paper’s headquarters, where supporters of press freedom bickered with supporters of the Communist Party and its old-line, heavy-handed approach to media control.

But China’s growing chorus of new-line, new-media voices have managed to put their own stamp on the controversy too. They have had to be rather creative about it, since the old-line forces still call most of the shots. Notwithstanding the concessions that have since been made to Southern Weekend’s reporters, there remain strict limits on the permissible scope of commentary, both in the mainstream publications that the state and party directly control, and in the more unruly online universe, where they struggle constantly to keep the lid on.

One notable figure got his point across with a combination of wry commentary and the clever use of “negative space”. Kai-Fu Lee gained fame as the founding president of Google China and has cultivated a broad following for his blog since leaving that job in 2009. In a post on the Sina Weibo microblog, he showed a picture of a tea set, accompanied by the comment “From now on, I will only talk about East, West and North. And I will only talk about Monday through Friday.”

Taken all together, the cryptic message would make perfect sense to many of the millions who follow his feed. The phrase “to be invited to tea” is a common euphemism for a non-voluntary chat with the police, and the fact that he could now talk about everything except for “South” and “Weekend” left little doubt as to what he might have been warned against chatting about.

A day earlier, he had another post, with only the picture of the tea set and the comment: “What unpleasant tea!”

Another clever post, from January 8th, reported by China Digital Times, showed a picture of a dog catching a Frisbee, with the caption, “That cruel moment when the dog nabs the Frisbee.”

The word “Frisbee” became a fraught term in the spectacular scandal of 2012 involving Bo Xilai, who fell from high power and now awaits trial on corruption charges. Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of another newspaper, became known as “Frisbee Hu” for making sure that the Global Times, one of the most hardline, nationalistic and outspoken in China, would arduously spin the Bo Xilai scandal in ways that were supposed to reflect well on the government.

A microblogged comment of last year, “No matter how far his masters throw the Frisbee, Master Hu will always fetch it back for them,” spawned Mr Hu’s new nickname. A day before this latest posting of a dog and a Frisbee, an editorial in the Global Times had argued that the sort of liberalisation demanded by Southern Weekend’s supporters is not suited to the “current social and political realities” of China.

Rich with homophones, the Chinese language is particularly well-suited to punning. This trait was exploited by a wiseacre at the Beijing News (which is partly owned by the same group that owns Southern Weekend), who ran a florid lifestyle piece in praise of southern-style rice congee. In this coldest winter in decades, the paper said, there is nothing else that can provide the warmth and consolation of southern-style congee. The allusion has been translated and in explained in depth by the China Media Project, but with “southern-style congee” sounding so much like “Southern Weekend” as it does in Mandarin, the meaning would have been clear enough to any Chinese reader paying attention. Which suggests that the censor responsible for that day’s Beijing News either wasn’t paying attention—or decided to let it through.

There is no ‘absolute’, ‘abstract’, and ‘universal’ democracy or freedom at all. Quite to the contrary, the concept of democracy or freedom varies from time to time, place to place and from nation to nation.

Can that be the identical democracy or freedom to be enjoyed by billionaires from Wall Street and slum dwellers though both of them are living in New York? Can that be the equal democracy or freedom to be shared by the US president or leader of Hamas though both of them are elected by people who have the right to vote? Can that be the equivalent democracy or freedom to be endorsed to gays or lesbians whose countries are located in different continents though their appeals are the same? Can that be the matching democracy or freedom to be offered to slaves 100 years ago or the black-skinned NBA players though both of them share the same ancestors?

When you are poor with no food to feed on, your democracy or freedom may be a bowl of rice or a piece of bread. When your belly is full with sufficient money to sustain your being, your democracy or freedom may be a sexual partner to satisfy your human needs. When your parents are not able to finance your education, your democracy or freedom may be a plead for a school of any sort. When your parents’ pocket is thick, your option may be Yale or Princeton university. When you have someone who understand you by your side, your democracy or freedom may be a vote to elect who will govern, and when you have someone to govern but not to your own will you’d be desperate willing to set up an organization to let him down and vote for someone else. When you have no arms to defend your backyards, you’d like to get some at any costs. When you have plenty of guns you’d prefer a ban on them. When you feel fooled by the 1 %, your democracy or freedom may be an action to occupy Washington. When you are elected to be mayor of the city, your democracy or freedom may be a cite-clearing. When you are not skilled enough to make a decent life your democracy or freedom may be a dream of becoming rich overnight. When you are as wealthy as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, your democracy or freedom may be philanthropy through which to feedback the money you have earned to the society.

Do as Romans do when you are in Rome, and fight for different ‘democracy ‘ or ‘freedom’ in different places during varying period of time with specific ends by a diversity of groups of people.

What you are in desire of depends on what your social-economic class status stands in. and both democracy and freedom should have boundaries.

It pays for Western observers to observe that the value heralded in the West is not necessarily the value upheld in China (and vice versa), as there are value of commonality and there are value of definitely different significance between the two sides.

Take “Southern Weekend” that’s being “beaten to death” by a slew of Economist articles”, when what’s more important to human suffering in comparison is the “Northern Ireland protest” instead IMO, by a large margin.

Just like Chinese firms or media should and must follow American rules to do business in the US, Western firms and media should and must follow Chinese rules to do business in China. And just like in America, unless there are grounds of being unfairly or mistreated, there is really nothing much for a firm or media to complian or to explian about, it's pretty much "take it or leave it".

Call it censorship, code of conduct or regulation if you like, some control and monitoring of press and interneting is absolutely needed for healthy growth and greater freedom of press and internetting, so vital to the security and safety in any country, especially for countries of the population size of China.

After all China has print newspapers of tens of million of readership that’s much larger than that in the West, and with 174 million broadband subscribers and 750 mobile internet users (out of about 1,100 million mobile users) to mine or milk with. If that’s not the mainstream, then what is?

Western media has no business to keep unending defaming of China’s press freedom by nit picking some local anomalies out of the national norm.

How much your grandpa Li recives as the old age pension actually?
You have not answered yet for this.
And he lives in the city where Wen Jiabao lives?
Is there anybody in China who is investigating the source of US$2.5 billion which Wen's families have built?
Does your grandpa Li, who lives for pension, know that news?
Answer me, dear Iching88, CCP paid poster.

You posted your well thought out comment without too much trouble. Or maybe you don't really exist and your comment is an attempt by The Economist to prove how open it really is.
PS I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that you had to settle for sikko6 as a "nom de plum"e and that there were 5 others who also wanted to be called sikko!

Please read all of my comments and then arrive at your conclusion. There is no wording in my comments 'that unearthing and stopping corruption is too Western for yourself and your countrymen,'. Instead, I hate corruption more than anyone else, especially within the ruling CCP.

In multimedia era censorship is dead . What may rulers of China do ban news ,opinion they will be unsuccessful within year.If rulers of China have some common sense they must understand that old age, old customs never come back.Can they alive dead body.? Be wise and lift censorship China will more prosperous

Call it censorship, code of conduct or regulation if you like, some control and monitoring of press and interneting is absolutely needed for healthy growth and greater freedom of press and internetting, so vital to the security and safety in any country, especially for countries of the population size of China.

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Don't expect brainwashed "free" people will realize the great and incurable damage their authoritarian media has done to them and their society.

Hello
Iching88, i must agree with you, despite being of young age, but lived and studied in a several countries, China being one of them (stay for over two years). I'd also emphasize another point. China, Korea and Japan happen to have similar culture, due to historical influence of China over these places and none of them have the same concept of western style democracy, even though Japan is a very rich country and South Korea is on the course of becoming one soon. My conclusion would be that culturally, the government is always going to play the Confucian role of a father. I visited North Korea last year as well, i've always wondered why the regime there hasn't fallen down yet despite all the hardship. Another thing, specific to mainland China is that the generation fo my peers (born after 1980s) is, on a general level, quite indifferent to what's going on on a political level, the generation that cares more about these things are people in their 40s and 50s but, as it happends to be the case very often, normally it's the very young generation that spearheads the changes. the young generation in mainland China lacks this radicalism (in a very stark contrast to Hong Kong for example.

Before writing press freedom in China, The Economist should write "global press freedom and fascist governments". It appears that The Economist is controlled by fascist governments from various continents. There are too much censorship in this forum!

Your conclusion based on your own observation compared to Japan and Korea does hold water considering you are not a native Chinese.
Countries in eastern Asia like Japan, Korea or South Korea have been influenced by Chinese culture to certain degree. But the case in point is that Confucian is by no means the only component of Chinese values accepted by the other nations in Asia though family-oriented culture is popular among them.
Western styled democracy works wonderfully in the western countries, especially in the US, and American people have turned their country into the only superpower of the world by that democracy with their constant innovation and pioneering spirit, which has its due shares in the world development. But can that democracy be transplanted to other countries, say, China, Japan or Korea, the countries you have been to?
Two-party rule and separation of legislative, administrative and judicative forces are examples for us to learn but not to copy like western styled food is welcomed by people in the east but can not become staple on their dinner table.

The young generation always wants changes, sometimes radical ones, whcih is universally true throughout the world with no exception to Chinese young generation. When young people become 'mature' mentally, they will be more prudent and sophisticated and less radical like the cobblestone shaped by constant clashes during its journey in the river to the sea.

The issue with press freedom in China is people don't freely express their love for the west nearly as much as the western definition of freedom requires.
Another popular word play on Chinese forums is to replace "democracy" with the same sounding "population of pigs" or "boiling the public", which I think gives the point fairly clearly. Of course you wouldn't expect the Economist to write anything about that type of speech freedom, after all, speech is only free if it follows a pre-defined guideline.